


when i knew love's perfect ache

by extasiswings



Series: all the ashes in my wake [3]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Feels, First Time, Lorena Flynn is a Saint and a Goddess, Pre-Series, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-14 23:30:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: Flynn ducks his head and kisses her again, soft and quick, before stepping back. “Next time,” he promises. “If you want, that is.”Lorena bites her lip and her eyes flick down the length of his body before meeting his again. “I think that part is a given,” she replies.(She could push—he’s not sure he would be able to refuse her if she did—but she doesn’t and he’s grateful)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I fully recognize that no one has asked for more Garcia/Lorena fic and also that I'm like..the only one writing it, but I have a lot of emotions about these two and their tragic, doomed relationship.

The night of Garcia’s fourth date with Lorena, he almost doesn’t make it home. She makes him take her dancing—real dancing, to a club with a live band and a demonstration period to learn the steps—and although he feels more than a little foolish, the sparkle in her eyes makes it worth it. He walks her home and she still has that same sparkle when she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him outside her door.

It’s slow and deep and it could be minutes or hours that he stays there, first kissing her lips, then venturing lower down her neck as her fingers curl into his hair, her keys forgotten in the lock. They only stop when a door slams down the hall, Flynn pulling back reluctantly. Lorena is flushed, her lipstick thoroughly smeared, and her eyes are dark when they meet his.

_God, she’s stunning._

“Are you sure you won’t come in?” She asks, the suggestion in her voice more than enough to make him flush with want. But…

But, he’s leaving in the morning, for where he doesn’t know, and she deserves better than a quick tumble and him running out before dawn. He wants to do things right with her. He needs to.

Flynn ducks his head and kisses her again, soft and quick, before stepping back. “Next time,” he promises. “If you want, that is.”

Lorena bites her lip and her eyes flick down the length of his body before meeting his again. “I think that part is a given,” she replies. 

(She could push—he’s not sure he would be able to refuse her if she did—but she doesn’t and he’s grateful)

“Goodnight, Lorena.”

“Goodnight, Garcia.”

Her smile stays with him the rest of the night.

* * *

If it weren’t so terrible, it would almost be funny—at least in a darkly ironic sort of way—that the best night Flynn’s had in quite some time should be followed by a mission that goes FUBAR almost from the get-go. Everything goes wrong. Everything, up to and including the hostage negotiation that results in a child dying in his arms, his hands soaked with blood.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

Flynn gets back to Dubrovnik just after midnight the week after he left and only stays long enough at his own place to drop his things. He feels numb, hollow, and the air in his room is stale and bitter, the silence stifling when his mind is so loud. It’s raining, but he doesn’t care—the chill and the damp of it gives him something to focus on besides his demons.

He doesn’t even realize his feet have led him to Lorena’s until he stops in front of the door and knocks, immediately regretting it when he hears shuffling on the other side. This is not where he should be. She shouldn’t see him like this. He should go—

 _Too late._

“Garcia?” Lorena opens the door before Flynn can turn around and run. She’s in a nightdress and her voice is rough with sleep, but her gaze is clear and concerned. 

“I—” His own voice catches in his throat. What is there to say? _I’m sorry? I should go?_

“Garcia, you’re soaked,” Lorena says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist and tugging him toward the open door. “Come inside. I’ll find you some clothes.”

 _I don’t deserve you_ , Flynn thinks when she disappears into the bedroom for a moment only to return with an over-sized shirt and pair of sweatpants. 

“They might be a little small, but…” She trails off under the weight of his stare and sets the clothes on the corner of the couch. “What is it?”

 _I’m falling in love with you_. The realization almost knocks him flat, steals his breath, because he can’t do this, he’s not good at this, he’s not good, and Lorena...Lorena deserves good, deserves everything. She certainly deserves better than him. 

“I—”

“Garcia.” Lorena’s voice is smoke curling into his ears, flint sparking into flame. When she steps into him, her palm is warm against his cheek, a sharp contrast to the chill seeping through his wet shirt, and even sharper when contrasted with the numbness he’s felt inside for days. His hands fall to her hips, and he can’t resist pulling her even closer.

“Look at me,” she commands, quiet but firm, and his eyes flicker open— _when had he closed them?_ —to meet her gaze. “What can I do?”

Flynn’s voice is caught in his throat, but his hands unconsciously flex hard on her hips. Lorena’s eyes flutter, a light flush spreading across her cheeks, and her fingers curl in his shirt as she leans up to kiss him.

“Lorena—” _You shouldn’t_ , he wants to say, but his protest dies the moment her lips brush his. He wants her, wants to touch her, to be around her—he wants to feel something, anything. It’s no surprise he’d ended up here.

But he can’t—he doesn’t trust himself to be with her now. Not like this, not when his mind is too loud, when his control is too fine to risk. She deserves—

Flynn snaps out of his thoughts with a hiss when her teeth catch his lip. There’s something else in her eyes now—understanding, a hint of challenge, heat. Her mouth travels over his jaw, tracing a path to his ear as her arms twine around his neck.

He shivers when her teeth catch his earlobe and tug.

“Take what you need,” she murmurs. “I won’t break.”

Flynn’s hands flex again, wracked with indecision until she nips hard at his pulse and he snaps. His mouth crushes to hers as he turns her, lifts her, and Lorena readily wraps her legs around his waist when her back hits the wall. Her hands fly to his hair as he turns his attention to the column of her neck, the scrape of his teeth dragging a ragged moan from her throat.

“Garcia—”

_Take what you need._

His mouth finds her pulse, travels down to her exposed collarbone, and his hand hikes the skirt of her nightdress up around her waist, tugs her underwear aside—

The rest is a blur. Lorena’s nails bite into his shoulders and rake down his back as he fucks her hard and fast, and it doesn’t take long before he’s spilling into her. Her own pleasure is—he’s ashamed to realize—an afterthought, but she does come pulsing around him a moment later once his fingers get between them.

Their breathing is harsh in the otherwise silent apartment and slowly, Lorena lifts her head from his shoulder and unlocks her legs from his waist.

“I’m sorry,” Flynn pants, still catching his breath as she slides down the wall until her feet touch the floor once more.

“For what?” She asks, stepping around him and casually stripping off her dress—soaked through now that he’s been pressed against her—as she makes her way to the small kitchen. He winces at the sight of the marks his hands left on her hips—those will bruise without a doubt.

“Water?”

Flynn’s so thrown by the offer that it takes him a minute to really comprehend it. 

“I—no, I’m fine,” he stammers.

There are marks on her neck as well—they stand out even more when she swallows and he’s torn between a certain possessive pride and feeling sick to his stomach.

 _Christ, what did I do?_

It was no way to treat a woman, that’s for sure—certainly not their first time. 

“Here.”

Flynn blinks and Lorena is in front of him once more, pressing a full glass into his hand. “Drink that.”

He’s too stunned to argue. Once he’s drained it, she nods and takes it back. “Feel better?” She asks.

“I—” _Yes. Surprisingly_. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

Lorena tips her head and examines him curiously. “Again...for what, Garcia?”

“For—” Flynn gestures aimlessly at the wall, at the marks on her—he’s ashamed enough to want to leave, but his desire to run wars with his need for her to forgive him and bolts his feet to the floor.

And then, to his surprise, Lorena laughs. She laughs and when he looks at her, her smile is wicked. 

“For fucking me?” She fills in, her eyes twinkling. “For marking me? Oh, darling—” She laughs again. “—Garcia, do I look upset?”

“...no?” He replies carefully. 

Lorena reaches for his hand, laces her fingers through his, and brings their clasped hands to her lips. 

“No,” she acknowledges. “It was fine. Better than fine. But if you want to talk about it more, we can do that. In the morning though, because right now you’re taking me back to bed. After all, you did wake me up.”

Flynn blinks, but it’s clearly not a suggestion that’s up for debate considering she’s already pulling him towards her room. It seems impossible, but somehow the hollowness in his chest has been replaced with something else. Fondness, exasperation maybe, awe, adoration,...love. It sticks in his head when Lorena strips off his damp clothes and pushes him down on the mattress, shucking the remainder of her own clothing before settling against him under the blankets. 

She’s a warm weight in his arms, against his chest, and there are a thousand things he wants to say, but he can’t make his throat work. 

“Go to sleep, Garcia,” Lorena murmurs, her own eyes already closed. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

 _Volim te_ , Flynn thinks.

He doesn’t; at least not right away. Instead, he watches Lorena as her breathing gets steadier and deeper, until her face clears in the peacefulness of sleep. He could still go, could slip out of bed, out the door, and go back to his own quiet home.

But he doesn’t. Doing that, now, feels like...a betrayal of something. What, he doesn’t know exactly, but he does know it would hurt. If it would only hurt himself, he might do it anyway, but he thinks it would hurt her as well, and that above anything else keeps him in her bed.

And eventually, after minutes of watching her, his breathing slowly syncing with hers, Garcia Flynn closes his eyes and dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

Lorena wakes up with a heavy weight across her waist and solid warmth at her back.

Garcia.

When she shifts, she bites her lip against a groan as out-of-practice muscles twinge in protest. 

_Ugh, fuck me_ , she thinks, and then almost snorts when she realizes, well...he had, hadn’t he? 

Part of her wants to go back to sleep, to close her eyes and sink into the warmth of him and drift. Or if not, to at least turn over in his embrace and wake him as well, in a much more pleasurable way.

But, as it would seem, neither of those options are in the cards given the way her bladder makes itself known. With a quiet sigh, Lorena carefully makes her way out from under Garcia’s arm and pads softly to the bathroom. 

She doesn’t notice the marks until she’s washing her hands, and then she pauses to look at herself in the mirror. 

Her eyes are bright, her hair wild and tangled. She lifts her hand to her neck, staring at the reflection as she traces each of the bruises left by his mouth. There are others too, lower down—purpling impressions of his hands, his fingers, from where he’d gripped her hips. She presses one and feels a faint ache, but it’s accompanied by a flash of memory, a thrill shooting down her spine, and she’s the furthest thing from upset.

(Garcia’s always been so delicate with her—treated her like she’s something fragile and precious—and while she certainly doesn’t mind that, part of her has wanted something like this. Wanted to be wanted, needed, so badly that he would forget himself. Wanted to be taken. And oh, had he delivered)

There’s the thrill, the spark, and then there’s heat, a warmth spreading through her entire self the longer she stares, the longer she traces the lines his fingers have left. She feels...powerful, desireable. And as much as she knows that there was something off about the night before, something they still need to discuss, she can’t regret anything that happened. Not when the only thing she wants is for it to happen again. 

She could go back to bed, but she doesn’t, electing to shower instead. But just as she turns on the water and steps inside, she hears the creak of a floorboard.

“Garcia?” Lorena calls. “Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” she hears through the door. 

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” she says.

“Is there anything I can do?” Lorena is certain that Garcia’s referring to things entirely unrelated to the shower—he’s more than likely asking if he can make her breakfast or something else that would put the maximum amount of distance between them while still remaining in her apartment. But she has a different idea.

“Wash my hair?”

The silence that follows almost makes her laugh with how predictable it is. And yet, to her surprise, the door opens a moment later.

The shower really isn’t large enough for two people—at least not when one of them takes up as much space as Garcia does—but Lorena isn’t bothered by that when it means he’s crowded up against her back. His hands are tentative when they settle on her waist and she sighs and presses back against him. 

“Good morning,” she murmurs.

“Good morning,” Garcia replies, reaching around her for the shampoo. “Did you sleep well?”

Lorena hums her assent, letting her head fall forward as his fingers comb gently through her hair, his nails scratching pleasantly at her scalp as he works up a lather. 

“If I sleep that well every time, I may just have to keep you,” she teases.

She can’t see his face, but it prompts a soft laugh, and she’s warmed by the thought that he might not mind that at all.

After another moment, he turns her so her back is to the spray. Lorena tips her head back under it, but can’t help opening her eyes just a crack to look at him. She’s so glad she did. The look on Garcia’s face...it’s as though she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Making a quick decision, she picks up her body wash and passes it over. “Will you do the rest?”

She catches the split second of indecision that flickers over his face, but he nods anyway. When she puts her back to him again he starts at her shoulders—the subtle floral scent of the lather fills her nose as his thumbs press carefully into knots in her neck. She bites back a moan, but can’t quite hold in the soft sound that follows. 

Garcia mostly avoids her breasts and the space between her legs, but it doesn’t matter. Her body reacts to his careful and thorough attention regardless, especially when his fingers skim over the bruises on her hips. It’s a slow torture that he seems entirely unaware of—she almost regrets asking him to do this. Almost.

When he finishes, once Lorena’s rinsed off, his hands stay on her hips, thumbs circling unconsciously. 

It’s maddening.

“Garcia—” She breathes his name and her hips shift. His hands still. 

“Is there something else you need?” He asks. From his tone, she can tell he’s far from unaware of her current predicament. Which is why she has no qualms about placing her own hand over one of his and guiding it lower until she gasps.

“ _Please_.”

She’s sore from the night before, but not nearly enough that she doesn’t want this now. And once he starts, she almost wishes she had made him do this earlier. His fingers play over her expertly—a little too expertly, she thinks when her legs shake and she has to steady herself against the wall. His touch is gentle but sure, seeking out her clit and dipping lower, making her gasp and cry out. When she comes—electric and devastating, with his name on her lips—he wraps an arm around her waist to keep her upright.

Lorena shuts off the water then, still sparking pleasantly with aftershocks, and turns in Garcia’s embrace, leaning up to kiss him.

“Take me back to bed?” She suggests. He does.

(She should dry her hair, or at least the rest of her, but at the moment she can’t be concerned with getting her sheets a little damp)

He doesn’t make love to her. Doesn’t even try, although she’d certainly be amenable. Instead, he seems content to hold her—his arms wrapping solidly around her while their legs intertwine. 

“Do you want to talk about last night?” Lorena asks after a few blissful moments of lying in his embrace, his fingers tracing a circuit down her spine.

Garcia sighs heavily, whatever tension she’d worked out of him returning with a vengeance. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have come here last night. I wasn’t...myself.”

Lorena bites her lip and looks up at him. “Will it help at all if I say I’m glad you did?”

When it looks as though he’s going to say something, she interrupts before he can. “I don’t know what happened. And I know there are some things you can’t tell me, and that’s fine. But I was glad that you showed up at my door. If coming to me helped even a little bit, then that’s what I want you to do.”

 _Let me help you. Let me comfort you. Please, love. Let me._

“I hurt you,” Garcia replies, his fingers nearly trembling as they ghost over her hip.

“You didn’t,” Lorena insists. “If you had hurt me— _actually_ hurt me—I would have told you. I would have stopped you.”

She reaches up and settles a hand on his cheek. His eyes flutter closed as he leans into the touch. 

“I meant it when I said I wouldn’t break,” she reminds. “You have to trust me to know my own limits, darling.”

“I do. I do, I just—”

Lorena doesn’t interrupt then, giving him time to gather his words.

“My father wasn’t a good man,” Garcia says finally. “He and my mother...well, I always told myself I wouldn’t be like him. That I would be better.”

He doesn’t expand, but given the context, she can read between the lines easily enough.

“Well,” Lorena says carefully. “I didn’t know your father. But I know you. And Garcia? You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

His exhale shudders out of him like steam through a leaking pipe, and he presses his face to her damp curls. 

“Will you stay?” She asks.

They still have more to talk about, but she’s happy to not talk for awhile as well. But either way, she wants him with her.

( _Be careful with your heart, mališa_ , her mother used to say. _It’s a precious thing and too easily broken. Don’t give it away too quickly_.

If her mother could see her now, she would likely shake her head and cluck her tongue in admonition. Because while she may not be willing to say it aloud, Lorena knows she loves this man)

“I’ll stay,” Garcia agrees. 

“Good.”


End file.
